July 6, 2010

Let me start by saying that I'm incredibly pleased with the quality of the search committee that Dr. Adams has assembled for the Athletic Director search, and I'm also pleased that he's setting a realistic time line for the AD search of 6 to 12 months.

Chairman: David Shipley -- Law School Professor, former Dean of the Law School, and faculty representative on the Athletic Board. (PWD Note: Dawgnoxious gave Shipley a big vouch as did another trusted source today. He's a big UGA fan attending many home and away football games)

Jack Bauerle -- UGA's Swim Coach with multiple national titles under his belt. Former Coach of the US Olympic Women's team. (PWD Note: Former student, assistant coach and player who has been a part of the UGA athletic program since 1970. As an ultra successful coach for men's and women's swimming as well as an enormous football fan, Jack is the perfect fit for the committee to represent the coaches)

Tom Landrum - Senior VP of External Affairs at UGA. Holds two degrees from UGA, and is a member of Mike Adams senior team. (PWD: It was a no brainer that he would be part of this committee.)

Swann Seiler -- Member of UGA Athletics Executive Board, Trustee of UGA's Arch Foundation, Marketing Executive with the Southern Company* and UGA Journalism School Graduate. (PWD Note: Swann obviously understands the UGA culture as good as anyone in the group, and she's got a marketing / fund raising background to help with the search. Plus, most of our biggest boosters trust the Seiler family. Good voice for them in the process.)

Carla Williams -- Senior AD for Women's Sports, two degrees from UGA and a PhD from FSU, former UGA basketball player and former assistant basketball coach under Andy Landers with two Final Four rings as an assistant. Prior to managing the women's programs at UGA, she ran the compliance department. (PWD Note: Making her part of the process is an excellent use of her skill set. Despite the articles mentioning her as a candidate that never made sense given her experience level. However, she can add real value here.)

Robert "Trey" Sinyard -- a native of Athens and the recipient of a Foundation fellowship—the highest academic scholarship awarded to UGA students, is a student representative on the board of the UGA Athletic Association and a member of the cross country team. (PWD Note: Trey comes from a hardcore UGA family, and he's an incredibly bright kid.)

This is the type of search where Mike Adams can add value through this connections. As he said during the press conference, he knows many of the athletic director candidates across the country from his involvement as Chair of the SEC Board of Presidents and member of the NCAA's Executive Committee.

The fact that we're a tremendously profitable athletic department who looks to be willing to pay $600k or more makes the position incredibly attractive. UGA's Athletic Director position is one of the Top 10 or so jobs in terms of salary.

In fact, the compensation package should be enough to attract a variety of candidates outside of the traditional Athletic Director role. You're talking about a comp package that would interest Chief Operating Officers and Presidents of mid-sized companies with backgrounds in sports and sports marketing. More on that later.

I've known David Shipley for 15 years (before he came to UGA), and as a loyal UGA alum I could not be happier that he is chairing this committee. Great integrity and he sincerely cares about UGA, especially the students (and yes, that includes our student-athletes). Committee looks great, and I'm expecting them to make an incredible hire.

Great choice for the student rep. Trey's an outstanding guy (worked with him at the Visitors Center for a year), and he's got the bona fides to back it up. Anxious to watch things play out over the next several months.

I agree with everything you've said about how important and prestigious the UGA AD job is and will be for the person eventually selected. But how did we hire such an inexperienced AD in DE in the first place (forget about his DUI troubles and scroll back to when he was only 34 years old with the prospects of running a big dollar Athletic Department)? He was a risky choice and I'm not evaluating his results overall, but my point is, what stops UGA from making another risky selection now, when the job was just as critical and prestigous as is was back when DE was hired. I think we need proven experience, but I'm not 100% sure we will get it.